I have another measurement for you today!
The Buchardt A500 is really like almost nothing else out there at its price. It's also a pain to measure With the various tunings, you basically get several speakers in one. These go beyond basic EQ, affecting directivity properties for the bass in particular.
Then the speakers have automatic loudness compensation, which is subtle and I think works extremely well. They also have a unique room correction system with the wireless hub. For today, I'm only sharing my measurements of the standard 'Nearfield tuning' because it turns out my measurements of the other tunings were corrupted by a damaged microphone . The nearfield tuning prioritizes the on-axis, as opposed to the other tunings which prioritize the listening window.
Measurement info: 1m distance, 6.5ms gate. Gear: CSL calibrated Umik-1 and a Fiio K3 DAC. The measurement axis was between waveguide and woofer. On axis is merged with nearfield port and woofer summation at ~400Hz, which has been compensated for baffle step. The off-axis bass is simulated by VituixCAD based on the on-axis splice. The bass was measured at a higher SPL than the far-field measurements (roughly 85dB @1m equivalent) in order to negate the effects of loudness compensation.
Normalized polars, horizontal:
and vertical:
Needless to say, these are well worth considering as an all-in-one studio monitor solution as well as home speakers. Flatness approaches genelec/neumann levels, but with more extension out of the box. The caveats are they have a bit of hiss (imo not particularly offensive, and buchardt says they're working on a way to reduce it) and are quite sensitive to vertical positioning. But for farfield or midfield in particular, they should work great as long as your SPL requirements aren't ridiculous.
Buchardt also has a tuning that 'only' goes down to 40Hz to have some more headroom, as well as a tuning that boosts the midrange, although I haven't seen measurements or had the chance to try it yet.
Much more to follow once I've finished my reviews and processing the bazillion other measurements for this speaker.
The Buchardt A500 is really like almost nothing else out there at its price. It's also a pain to measure With the various tunings, you basically get several speakers in one. These go beyond basic EQ, affecting directivity properties for the bass in particular.
Then the speakers have automatic loudness compensation, which is subtle and I think works extremely well. They also have a unique room correction system with the wireless hub. For today, I'm only sharing my measurements of the standard 'Nearfield tuning' because it turns out my measurements of the other tunings were corrupted by a damaged microphone . The nearfield tuning prioritizes the on-axis, as opposed to the other tunings which prioritize the listening window.
Measurement info: 1m distance, 6.5ms gate. Gear: CSL calibrated Umik-1 and a Fiio K3 DAC. The measurement axis was between waveguide and woofer. On axis is merged with nearfield port and woofer summation at ~400Hz, which has been compensated for baffle step. The off-axis bass is simulated by VituixCAD based on the on-axis splice. The bass was measured at a higher SPL than the far-field measurements (roughly 85dB @1m equivalent) in order to negate the effects of loudness compensation.
Normalized polars, horizontal:
and vertical:
Needless to say, these are well worth considering as an all-in-one studio monitor solution as well as home speakers. Flatness approaches genelec/neumann levels, but with more extension out of the box. The caveats are they have a bit of hiss (imo not particularly offensive, and buchardt says they're working on a way to reduce it) and are quite sensitive to vertical positioning. But for farfield or midfield in particular, they should work great as long as your SPL requirements aren't ridiculous.
Buchardt also has a tuning that 'only' goes down to 40Hz to have some more headroom, as well as a tuning that boosts the midrange, although I haven't seen measurements or had the chance to try it yet.
Much more to follow once I've finished my reviews and processing the bazillion other measurements for this speaker.